Sunday, December 12, 2010

26 Months - Maligayang Pasko

Maligayang Pasko! Merry Christmas to you!

December was like a whirlwind! We had an early Winter storm, which meant that we most definitly had a White Christmas! Mom and I began our Christmas baking early in the month because we knew the month would be busy. We made a bunch of different cookies and we froze the batter for baking later.

We spent a week in early December helping Rachelle to paint and prepare for her move to her first home!

After a month and a half, we finally got the go-ahead to "finish" mom's kitchen. We were waiting for a specialist to come and inspect the house after we had the flood in October. After his report, we were able to finally finish the kitchen (just in time for Christmas!!) We still have some finishing touches to do, but the kitchen is functional - which came in pretty handy for Christmas dinner.

Here are the before and after shots:



Mom and I spent the week before Christmas baking, decorating and shopping. All the preparations made for a week with not much sleep, but that helped me not to focus on the obvious - that we were celebrating yet another Christmas without our Little One.

On Christmas eve, we went to visit my grandmother and then we went to church for the annual Christmas eve candlelight service. It was a beautiful service, however I cried through most of it. For the past two years we thought that we would at the very least have our proposal for our Little One by now. We understand that we just have to wait, but the wait is long and it is not always easy, and on days like Christmas, it is even more difficult.

Following the Christmas eve service we had some of our family and friends over for a buffet dinner. We had fun...there was far too much food! It was nice to be surrounded by those we love. After everyone left, and a visit from the "pyjama man" we changed into our pj's and finished wrapping our presents.


Christmas morning was celebrated with my brother and his family. We loaded up the car with all the gifts and headed over. This year, we both moved, and we now live only a five minute drive from each other - it was nice to be able to spend more time with family and less time in the car! After the delicious brunch we opened all the gifts, then we were able to spend some time with the kids playing with their gifts. Eric's family came over in the late afternoon, and we enjoyed a yummy dinner even though the turkey took forever to cook and dinner was served a little later than expected.

Boxing day, we went to our church's annual family skate where I tried out my new skates...I love, love, love them! For the first time since I was a kid, my feet didn't hurt while skating! We then came home and spent the rest of the day in our
pj's in front of the fireplace.

26 months and counting...

Sunday, November 28, 2010

25 Months and 1000 days


We celebrated our 25th month of waiting for our Little One in the USA. On Thursday (American Thanksgiving), we drove to Wrentham,MA with some of our close friends. After the 6 hour drive, we arrived at 10:30pm at the Wrentham Outlets, there was a major traffic jam on the highway to get to the outlets, and the stores didn't even open until midnight! We shopped all night, and after a hearty breakfast at Cracker.Barrel (I LOVE Cracker.Barrel), we headed to our hotel for some much needed sleep. We slept until noon and then headed out to do more shopping. We found some amazing deals and some new treasures (like my beautiful teal coach purse! 50% +50% +20% off) and an amazing deal on an espresso maker!

Earlier this month, we went out for dinner with another couple who is also adopting from the Philippines. We met at the CLSC courses we took in the spring and have decided to stay in touch. We went to a small filipino restaurant in Montreal. Before dinner, Eric and I walked around the neighborhood which has a few filipino shops and we had fun looking and buying some authentic filipino foods. We bought all the fixings to make Pancit and Pork Adobo. We made our homemade filipino dinner and we really enjoyed it! I particularly liked the pancit!

In our quest to finish working on the house, we decided to tackle the playroom. The room is a combination playroom and library (for all of Eric's books), he's pretty happy to finally have his books out of storage(it's only been 10 months since we moved in!). Our inspiration for the room came from this bedroom that we saw on the Pottery.Barn website.

After getting more bad news on the adoption front, we decided it was time to get another puppy...Introducing...OSCAR!


After losing Hobbes in the spring, we thought that since we were close to the end of our wait for a proposal we would wait before getting another puppy, but after all the bad news lately and the possibility that we may have to wait for another year before we get the call, we decided that we would get a puppy now. We've had Oscar for about three weeks, he's a cute little guy don't you think?

1000 days...it's been 1000 days since we started the adoption process...I'm really hoping that the end of the wait is near!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Down for the count?

We got word today from our agency that ICAB has officially extended our waiting time (at least for families in Quebec) to between 24 and 36 months.

We are so incredibly saddened by this news, we thought that 2010 would be the year we became a family and now it looks like it may be 2012.

We know we'll get through this...but right now we feel...well, we think we might know how Margarito felt...

Saturday, November 6, 2010

11 years and an adoptive family conference



11 years ago today I married my friend! (I know its cheesy) We didn't know then what the future would hold, and even though we have had our share of trials along the way, there has been a lot of fun and happiness too...and I would do it all over again!

This morning, some of our extended family and friends participated in a pre-adoption conference. We were so thankful that so many of our family & friends were able to attend, it really means a lot to us! We have had only positive feedback. Many said that they learned something new, or that they saw things from a different perspective after the conference. It has increased everyone's excitement, for some it was a reality check...this is happening and it's happening soon!

It was also Eric's grandma's 85th birthday, so after the conference we went out for lunch with his family. We try to get together a few times a year to keep in touch...it was really nice to see everyone! Grandmaman was looking great, and she was happy to have all of the family together...especially little Jade!

Since we had such a busy day, we decided not to celebrate our anniversary today, so we had a few friends over, and I made homemade pita bread...the first batch didn't turned out too thick and tough (we'll use them for pita pizza's this week). The second batch turned out great! I think might be making pita on a regular basis.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Pre/Post Adoption Support Group - Meeting #2

Tonight was the second pre/post adoption support group. We have been having a hard time dealing with the extended wait times, and tonight we shared some of what we were feeling. I found it particularly refreshing and was somewhat emotional to be in a room with a dozen other pre&post adoptive parents and a social worker... when I talked, I felt like they listened, and not just listened, but that they heard me... there was an empathy that comes from having lived through similar situations that touched me deeply. I went into the group feeling rather low (as I have been for most of this month) however, when I left, I felt somehow more uplifted. I will be forever grateful for the people in the group... they (and you, my friends) have encouraged me more than they could ever know.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

2 years ago today...

Two years ago today, we got the wonderful news that we were officially approved by ICAB (on October 27, 2008) to (one day) become parents of a Little One.

We both thought that today would have been a great day to get The Call...but it was not to be...and so we continue waiting for you, Little One!

Little One...we can't wait until the day when we can finally hold you in our arms!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

24 Months


We have reached the two year mark in our adoption journey...

We are happy to have two years behind us, knowing that we are that much closer to our Little One, however, we are sad, anxious and somewhat frustrated, we are now entering a different phase of our adoption journey... the unknown. We now have no idea how long it could take for us to receive our referral and the parameters that we once thought we had have been removed. As far as we know there haven't been any families who have passed 30 months. We are hopeful that we'll get the call soon-ish.

Here's a recap of the past month... I feel like I should warn you though, it's been a rough month...

The month started with the news from our agency that they project that it is likely that couples who are waiting to adopt will have to wait longer than the original 18-24 month wait time. This news sent me (Tammy) into a little bit of a tailspin... I was having trouble dealing with the news, I allowed myself to be sad for a couple of days.

The next setback came around the middle of the month. We've been having a pretty rainy fall... and on October 15 we had a particularly bad rain storm, we noticed that there was water in the house and after investigating we realized that we had a leak somewhere... the area of the house that was most effected by the leak... was mom's kitchen!! We had just finished laying the tile on the counter - all that was left was the backsplash and a couple of finishing touches. The cleaning company came in, and the insurance company came in and we're waiting for a building inspector to come and tell us where the water may be coming from. After the cleaning company came with their blowers to dry out the walls and the floors (we had 6 blowers and a dehumidifier going for 4 days and nights), they prepared a report for the insurance company - their recommendation is that we open the wall and the floor to find out how much water damage there was and to disinfect any wood that may have come into contact with the water. That means that the kitchen that I've been working on for 6 months...may need to be torn out and started over! The insurance will pay for the damage inside the house, but not the cost of repairing the foundation.

The third traumatic event of the month was our discovery that our heating wasn't working... we were able to have that fixed (for now) but we discovered that our bi-energy system is not working and it'll cost a pretty penny to replace the broken heat pump. Needless to say I could have done without all three of these events this month.

Not all was doom and gloom though this month, we went apple picking, which is always a fun fall family highlight. We had a big Thanksgiving dinner, Rachelle was home for Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in two years. We went shopping to buy some gear for our Little One. We helped with the Play it Forward Kids Champs game that pitted the winners of the Kingston tournament against the winners of Montreal. We got some cool media coverage from a local TV station (CTV) and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

While doing some blog reading today, I came across a post by one of my favorite "Mommy Bloggers" - The Meanest Mom - the post was entitled "we are where we are for a reason". I was encouraged by the fact that while it's no fun to be stuck where we don't want to be...we are where we are for a reason...and it was just what I needed to hear today...so thanks Meanest Mom for reminding me.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Baby (Little One) Carrier

Last weekend, we asked our niece if she would help us to try out a baby carrier for our Little One. We have been looking around for one that would allow us to carry around our Little One and since we don't know how big (or little) they will be when we get them, it's important to us that we get a carrier that will allow us to carry a child for as long as possible. Our niece is 4 years old, and although she's quite tall for her age, she doesn't weigh 40lbs yet. So we picked her up on Saturday morning and headed over to a great shop near us; FloUrbain. We knew that she may change her mind at any moment, but we hoped that that wouldn't be the case. We looked all around the boutique and let her touch and play with whatever she wanted to, so that she would feel comfortable. We had to wait a little while to try on the carrier; when it was our turn, Brit said "Auntie Tammy, I think I changed my mind". We decided to try the carrier on using the 15lb doll at the store. Afterwards, I convinced her to come to a corner of the store where we would be by ourselves (without the salesperson) and she agreed to jump into the carrier...it was surprisingly easy to put on and carry her around in it....and she was able to tell me that it was comfortable. Then it was Uncle Rikki's turn to try the carriers both with the doll and with Britney.

We decided on the Ergo Baby carrier. It was an investment, but we plan to use it to promote attachment and to help us when we travel, so we thought the expense was worth it.



We also bought some "Little People" from Plan Toys...I loved playing with Little People when I was little, so when we saw these little people...we couldn't resist!

When we brought Britney home, we showed her mom how the carrier worked...Britney was so comfortable...she didn't want to get out...she snuggled in and rested for about 5 or 10 minutes with her head on my shoulder while I talked to her mom...this from a little munchkin who can't sit still for a minute!

Britney...Thanks so much cutie for helping Auntie Tammy and Uncle Rikki...it means a lot to us that you helped us with this special purchase! We can't wait to see you playing with your new little cousin!

Still waiting...



We received an email from our agency on October 1, 2010 about the possibility of our wait time passing the projected 18-24 months. Although there has been no official word from ICAB, our agency has quite a few families who have passed the 24 month mark, or who are about to do so (like us). They informed us that we should be prepared to wait for another 6 months or so!

It was really hard to hear, and we had a hard time digesting the news, we thought that our wait was almost over... We took the time to grieve, and to digest the news. We're still hopeful that we'll get the call soon...but we're also starting to wrap our minds around the fact that we may not be parents for another year. It is difficult, but we know that there is a reason for everything.

23 months...three weeks...three days...and counting...

Monday, September 27, 2010

23 Months

This month has been really busy...between canning, working on mom's kitchen, a birthday or two and voila... here we are at month 23.

At the end of August my friend and I drove out to a tomato farm. We bought 6 bushels of tomatoes (thats about 360 pounds of tomatoes!). We also bought all the other supplies we would need to make homemade salsa and spaghetti sauce. We spent the next three days canning. It was a lot of work, but it was so worth it in the end... we have yummy homemade sauce and salsa for the year! This was our second canning weekend, I think I forgot to mention that we canned beets one weekend in August.



We have been working on mom's kitchen, the cupboards are all installed. We decided to do a tile countertop and so we had to reinforce the cupboards to make sure that the weight of the counter would be supported. We ordered the tiles and the special moldings to finish up the tile... We've had a terrible time getting the supplies in. The company ordered the wrong kind of moldings not once, but twice! So once we get the moldings in, the kitchen will be done. I thought mom would have her kitchen for Thanksgiving, but, now I'm not so sure... we'll have to see!

This past weekend we went apple picking... well it rained so we picked one bag of apples and then we bought the rest (6 bushels of apples) to make apple sauce, apple butter and to can apple pie filling. Yum! I bought a shelf to hold all of the canning that we've done this year...I've done canning in the past, but never this much before! It's fun... especially when you have lots of helpers!

We were invited to an information session given by our adoption agency. The session was animated by a nurse, she shared information about the kinds of health issues you may encounter when you adopt. At the session we met Patricia face to face! I used to work with Patricia's brother and we both started the adoption process at the same time, however we've never met before... we read each other's blogs and have encouraged each other along the way, but it was nice to finally meet Patricia and her hubby Yan.

Oh and there were birthdays...

Eric's mom's birthday was at the beginning of the month... we went out for dinner to a lovely french restaurant...Auberge Handfield it's a family favorite! Rachelle came home from Belgium on the 8th of September...MSF sent her for epidemiology training (the study of epidemics). This will be her last trip for a little while, she starts work at the Jewish General Hospital at the end of the month.

I celebrated my 36th birthday this month... I spent the day with my friend and then came home to a lovely party planned by my hubby... there was good food and wine and lots of friends and family... it was wonderful!

For the past year we have volunteered at our church leading the youth group. It has been a wonderful experience. We are grateful that we had the opportunity to be a part of the teens' lives. However, with our upcoming adoption, we felt that we needed to step down and focus on things at home for now. It was a difficult decision, but we know that it was the right one for our family for right now.

So, here we are with 23 months completed...I must say that the 24 months is quickly approaching and there hasn't been a proposal since July. We have heard that our agency is annoucing that the delays are lining up to 30 months. Hearing the news that the wait is going to be officially extended has been difficult for us. We knew that it was possible, but you always hope that it won't happen. So, we're preparing ourselves to wait a little longer.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

22 Months

At the beginning of the month, there was the official end of summer vacations around here, mom was off of work for the first week of August, we went down to Burlington for a day, we went to bleu lavende, on a mother/daughter day with rachelle and ruthie...we ate at the ripplecove inn...it was lovely. Then, just when I thought that things were going to slow down a little...I had forgotten a small detail about the month of august...




My brother has been organizing a ball hockey tournament called Play it Forward Kids for the past 8 years. The proceeds of the tournament go to help underpriviliged kids get some sports equipment so that they can participate in sports that they otherwise would not be able to. It's a lot of work and every year he gives so much of himself to this tournament...and he loves it! Just to watch his face on the day of the tournament...and even more so on the day when the kids get to come and choose their sports equipment. Every year the tournament grows, and this year, it expanded to include 2 cities, Montreal and Kingston. The two tournaments were on back to back weekends in August. Both events were great successes...way to go, little brother! My "area of expertise" is registration (which I normally loathe) however, this year we brought technology to the park and registration was a breeze with the help of my laptop!!



With the help of my friend, we began working on the walls of the new kitchen at my moms. The room was used by the previous owners as a classroom for homeschooling, and there was a chalkboard on one wall and a corkboard on the other...the chalkboard needed to be covered with plaster...to smooth out all the millions of holes the previous owner put in the wall with a nail gun to put on the border of the chalkboard...I can assure you that you could have hung off the molding around the chalkboard and the wall would have fallen before the molding would have given way...there were so many nails! Repairing the corkboard wall was worse...they glued the corkboard to the wall and when we removed the cork, the glue stayed on the wall...so we had to scrape it off, and in the process damaged the wall underneath. So for the kitchen, I would say that for one whole week, it was plaster, plaster, and more plaster...and finally, the next week, paint! It is finally ready for the cabinets!!

We are still discussing the playroom...I think it won't be official until the paint is purchased!

Even with all the keeping busy the wait is getting to us...we don't want it to, we're trying to be patient, but I think we both never really thought that we would be waiting for this long...we both thought that we would have had our proposal by now. I realized recently that it is highly unlikely that we'll have our Little One home for Christmas this year and that was a sad, sad day. We know that it is all out of our control, and we know that we need to be patient and that God's timing is perfect. However, in those quiet moments when I'm alone, and the longing in my heart makes it hard to breathe...it just feels like the waiting will never end.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Chasing Moose Tour - Day 11

We arrived early in the morning in Sunny North Sydney, since I had a good sleep on the ferry, I started driving and Eric went to sleep. I drove through Nova Scotia, and then we switched drivers, and he drove through half of New Brunswick, and then I drove the other half of New Brunswick and into Quebec...we switched drivers just outside Quebec City, and Eric drove home.

Before starting the drive home, we decided that we would only drive the 16 hours if we really felt like we could do it, otherwise, we would stop and stay over somewhere in New Brunswick. The drive went well and we were feeling good, so we decided that we would drive home.

The majority of the drive was uneventful, it wasn't until we got just outside of Quebec City where we hit a storm, and the rain was coming down so hard I thought that we may have to sleep there for the night. Thankfully though we pushed through and we only hit a couple of spots with really bad rain.


We were so glad to arrive home safely and to be able to sleep in our own bed! However, we're dreaming of...Newfoundland...

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Chasing Moose Tour - Day 10

Today, our plan was to drive to Port-aux-Basques and tour around the area. Our Ferry wasn't until midnight, so we knew that it would be a long day, and the only day of our trip where we could "stop and smell the roses" whenever we wanted to.

While we were touring around Newfoundland, we had passed many Brooks, and each time, I wanted to stop and take a picture, today was the day where I would do just that, we stopped and took pictures whenever we wanted to. We took our time driving to Port-aux-Basques.


We stopped at the Wreckhouse site - the most windy spot in Newfoundland. It was a stunning site!




En route to the Rose Blanche Lighthouse, we came upon the Barachois Falls...there was a boardwalk like path that was in bad need of repair, but that only added to the adventure. We walked right up to the pool at the base of the falls. It was stunning! I loved the landscape on this side of Newfoundland. After the little hike to the falls and back, we made our way to the Lighthouse.




It was a really beautiful site, and while we were there, we witnessed a marriage and a baptism.

We headed back to the Port-aux-Basques area for supper. We ate COD...Yummy! Afterwards, we walked along the boardwalk, while there, we saw a ferry come in and an older man came by to ask us if we wanted to buy and old fishing boat....I wish I would have taken a picture of the boat...it was awful...the old man said the price was good, but that the boat needed work. We could see that the boat needed a lot of work, and he informed us that there had been some homeless people who had been living in the boat for a while. We thanked him for telling us about the boat for sale, but told him that we weren't interested in buying a boat.


We still had a long while to wait for our ferry, so we decided to tour around. We stopped to buy some gifts. Then we drove around and ended up at Grand Bay Beach. Grand Bay is the home of a Piping Plover Reserve. We were lucky enough to see a couple of them...but they're small and they move really quickly, so both photos we took are blurry. There was a lovely boardwalk on the ocean. There were lots of rocky beaches and we saw our first sand beach in Newfoundland there. We stopped at two rocky beaches...at one, there were many Inukshuk's and Eric decided to add to the collection. And at the other, we went down to the beach to throw some stones in the water and to check out the temperature of the water (it was cold...like turn your skin red kind of cold!). We continued walking along the boardwalk until sunset, unfortunately there were too many clouds for it to be a spectacular show.


I'm so glad that the last moments we had on the Rock were spent walking along the ocean...I LOVE Newfoundland...and I already know I'm going to miss this place...and we haven't even left yet!

Once it was dark outside, (around 10pm) we headed over to the Marine Atlantic terminal to wait for our ferry home. The ferry was a little late leaving Newfoundland. Once we boarded the ferry, we headed for the air seats. We were lucky enough to have found them again, and I had a good sleep (on the floor - the chairs are not so comfy after sitting in a car all day).

I guess since we're leaving the province tonight that the offical Moose count for our trip was just 2! I know we could have seen more if we had chosen to drive more at night, but we thought it would be safer to drive during the day (and we could see more of this beautiful province....Good bye for now Newfoundland...we'll be back one day!

The Chasing Moose Tour - Day 9


Today we are leaving St.John's and heading to Grand Falls/Windsor. We packed up our room and headed out...we stopped at The Rooms on our way out of town. The Rooms is a museum, art gallery and archive in the heart of St.John's, we enjoyed our visit, it took us about two hours to go through, but at the end we were rushing (there's a 2 hour maximum for the free parking). We probably could have spent all day there! We stopped at some stores on the way out of town and then we were on our way to Grand Falls/Windsor.

We stopped at Blue Mountain in the Terra Nova National Park.




We stayed at the Carriage House Inn B&B it was the most modern of all the B&B’s that we stayed at. We loved the decor of the room, the king sized bed and the bath with jets! We were pretty tired so we decided to stay in and relax - we didn't even have dinner. We started watching a movie, but we were so tired that we didn’t finish watching it.

Of all of the days of our vacation, this day was the one where we took the least photos and it was the day that we rested the most.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Chasing Moose Tour - Day 8

This morning, we headed over to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America. It is a lovely site with a working lighthouse and the whales came to give us another show – not nearly as spectacular as the one on Quirpon, but neat to see either way! We walked around the site and watched the whales which took us about an hour and a half.

(That's Eric under the flower)


On our way back to St. John’s, we stopped in Petty Harbour. It was a pretty little town, The harbour was different than any other we’d seen.


After taking some pictures, we headed back to downtown St. John’s (One of Eric’s favourite spots). We did some shopping and then we went to Kelly’s Pub for Fish and chips. It was recommended by Joy, our hostess at the B&B and we were not disappointed. It may have been the best fish and chips we had while we were in Newfoundland. Their coleslaw was amazing!

It was incredibly hot that day, and we headed back to the B&B to shower before dinner. We were a little early for dinner, but we didn’t want to get all sweaty again, so we decided to tour around a little in the car. We drove up to Signal Hill, and got out of the car for just long enough to take a couple of pictures and then we got back in the car and drove around a little more and then headed out to Torbay for dinner at Renee and Brian’s.

When we arrived, we were greeted outside by Renee and Sid (their dog). I was so excited to meet Sid, but as it turned out he didn't like me – at all, but he did like Eric. I even tried to woo him with a bone from dinner, but he would have none of it! Dinner was wonderful....Eric especially liked the warm blueberry crisp for dessert!

I think we were all a little nervous at first, but we soon found out that we had lots to talk about! We were supposed to go for a walk, but we got to talking and it looked like rain, after awhile though, we decided to go for a walk. We headed to Signal Hill to get some pictures of downtown at night.


We headed back to Renee & Brian’s and we chatted a little more, and I didn’t realize the time...it was midnight when we left! Renee gets up super early and we kept her up super late! (sorry Renee!) Thanks so much for everything! Our visit with you was one of the highlights of our trip and we hope that you’ll come and visit us in Montreal really soon!!

21 months



As with each passing month, we can hardly believe that we have reached this benchmark - well we say that, but then again it seems to have taken forever to get here... and since we don't know when the end of our wait will be... it seems like we'll be waiting forever to get that elusive CALL. We know that the key is to keep busy so time passes more quickly, and so we have been, but that doesn't change that longing to finally see the face of our Little One!

This month has mostly been about vacation. The first week of the month was spent planning the final details for our vacation, and preparing for our trip. We were away for 11 days. We watched our niece for one week, and my mom watched my niece and my nephew for one week. So to say that this month was busy is probably an understatement!

Mom is still on vacation so we have another week of vacation activities planned and then we'll be getting back to work.

We are very anxious to get the call... we thought that being on vacation would help us to not think quite so much about the adoption, but we found that we were thinking more about our Little One, thinking about how different our vacation would have been with our Little One in tow.

We have also through the month still been dealing with the passing away of our dog, Hobbes. We miss him a lot.

We have a long list of things that need to get done in the house. We've (re)started the debate on the paint colour in the play room... We're pretty much settled on not painting it black - otherswise it could go so many different ways - at this point Eric is campainging for red and I'm thinking brown...and once we know if it's a boy or girl...we can accent with gender appropriate colors...i.e brown and blue...brown and pink...brown and turquoise...you get the idea...we'll keep you all posted about what we decide...feel free to weigh in on the debate!

Friday, July 23, 2010

The Chasing Moose Tour - Day 7

We left Twillingatethis morning, it was a beautiful sunny morning, we packed up our things, packed the car and since it was such a beautiful morning, we decided to head out to the Lighthouse/Lookout one last time to take some pictures of the lighthouse and of my favorite house in Twillingate.


As we left Twillingate, we stopped to pick up a sandwich for the road at The Cozy Tea Room - where we had toutons yesterday...oh so yummy! We headed towards Gander. Along the road, we came to a 16km stretch of highway that they called rough roads. It was 16km of dirt, gravel and pot holes! While we were driving that stretch of road, from Twillingate to Gander, we saw a horse tied to a tree with just a rope and we nearly hit a dog, he jumped in front of our car...I guess he wanted to play!

The drive was beautiful from Twillingate to Gander, but between Gander and Mount Pearl, there was thick fog, and rain.


Arriving in the Mount Pearl/St.John's area felt kind of surreal, after seeing all of the quaint fishing villages along our way, it was weird to see the housing development filled suburbs. It was very obvious that there were a lot more people living in this part of Newfoundland. Have I mentioned before that I don't like crowds very much?

We drove in to St. John’s, found our B&B and checked ourselves in. We unloaded the car just in time before the rain! We called Renee to let her know that we had arrived in St. John’s and then we rested a little. While talking to Renee, we made plans to get together for dinner tomorrow evening(July 14th). We decided to go and explore downtown St. John’s and to see if our friend Matt was free. Matt had plans with his family for dinner but told us that he would be free after dinner for coffee. We walked around downtown, on Duckworth and Water Streets. There are lots of neat shops, but we didn’t do any shopping, we went to dinner at a pub/brewery called Yellowbelly’s. The food was ok...but the service not so much. After dinner we walked around a bit more while Eric was exchanging texts with Matt. We decided to meet up at a coffee shop near our B&B called Coffee Matters. It was a nice little shop with a few tables outside, and since it was hot out, it was nice to sit out and enjoy the breeze. We sat and chatted for awhile and then we walked around downtown again but this time from a different route, and in a more residential area, where they have all the “Row” houses. I love them all. I love the colors and how each owner has made their own house unique! I took a lot of pictures of those houses.



On the way we stopped for Ice cream at Moo Moo’s, where they make homemade ice cream. After walking around downtown, we headed back to the B&B...I was so tired! So we said goodbye to our friend Matt, and went to bed...there was no air conditioning, but Joy, our hostess was kind enough to find us a fan. Eric said to me as he was lying in bed while I was working on the blog "I don't know if I'll be able to sleep in this heat" I looked over about 3 minutes later...and he was out like a light!